


Imagine the Sky

by misscam



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-30
Updated: 2009-06-30
Packaged: 2017-10-17 12:44:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/176977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misscam/pseuds/misscam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She has made a virtue of accepting realities too much to stop now. That leaves the fantasies. [Adama/Roslin]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Imagine the Sky

**Author's Note:**

> Set after "Blood on the Scales", before "Islanded in a Stream of Stars". Written on a challenge from **whatever_lj** , to include five objects. Bonus points if you spot them. Much thanks to **lyricalviolet** for beta.

Imagine the Sky  
or Five Fantasies Bill and Laura Shared (and One Reality They Lived With)  
by **misscam**

Disclaimer: Not my characters, just my words.

II

The first night when Bill notices Laura's hand is shaking, she is brushing her teeth with his toothbrush and he is talking about the Galactica repairs again. It's become a habit of late, keeping her up to date before they go to bed. Sometimes, she tells him a little bit about how Lee is doing, sometimes with pride and sometimes with annoyance. Sometimes both. (He knows that feeling.)

He's in the middle of a sentence when he notices in the mirror and the rest of the words immediately flee his mind. Her hand is shaking and she lowers the toothbrush when it doesn't let up.

"It's not the first time," she says in the silence.

She is dying, he remembers. He just tries so frakking hard to forget it that it sometimes works.

"It's not going to get better," she goes on, putting her hand in his. He can feel the slight shake until it stills and her eyes on his face, reading his reactions.

He isn't sure what she sees, but it does make her smile almost sadly.

"I'm still here," she says, leaning in. "My body is failing me, not my mind. I'm still here."

"For now," he says, sounding harsh even to him. She doesn't wince, just looks at him.

"I'll be here," she says softly, her hand at his chest just above his heart. She moves the other to his temple, drawing a circle very softly. "And here. As long as you live."

'I want it to be as long as you do,' he doesn't say, but he knows she reads it in his face still, pressing her forehead against his.

Her kiss is light, but she holds if as if to remind him she still has some strength. "I believe I owe you a bedtime story."

"We need to pick a new book," he murmurs, but she shakes her head.

"No. I'm going to tell you a story tonight."

II

 _Once upon a different time, there was a schoolteacher and a parent and a parent/teacher conference not as planned._

 _Planned wouldn't have been skirt hitched up to the hips, hair spilling loose from her elastic band, lips heavy and the parent in question kissing her with a hand between her legs._

 _He's lifted her up on the desk, and she can sense a great deal of strength in him. He might not be tall and not the most classically handsome, but there was something strangely attractive in his face when he gave her just one smile._

 _To her at least, as proved by the fact that she has a firm grip on his tie with no intention to let go and she was the one to kiss him in the middle of a heated argument about the education of his son._

 _More students shouldn't bring apples to the teacher, but attractive fathers who can wield a tongue, she thinks dimly and appreciates the sensation of his against hers. Then again, there is a very good reason why they shouldn't and that's called Complications._

 _She's already had her fair share of them and now she's making out with another on her own desk. Has a good mind to move it ahead a few bases and just frak him on the desk, in fact._

 _(It's a good thing she already knows he's divorced, or this would be even more inexcusable.)_

 _She doesn't do that, putting a hand on his chest instead and pulling back. He takes the cue, stepping away from her and just watching her as she readjusts her clothes._

 _He's not one to talk just to talk, she thinks. Unlike a lot of others she knows. She thinks she can grow to like that a lot._

 _"Mr. Adama..." she begins, then shakes her head a little. "I'm sorry, I don't even know your first name."_

 _"William Adama," he says, extending a hand. She takes it after a moment's hesitation, watching their hands link as if it's a completely natural thing. "Bill to my friends."_

 _"Laura," she says. "Just Laura."_

II

"Laura," Bill says, his voice low. "I do have a desk."

She closes her eyes as his hand caresses her left breast, the nipple hardening against his thumb. She can imagine herself perched on it, her legs hooked around Bill, but she knows her body isn't up for that tonight. Maybe not at all, if it keeps deteriorating.

That leaves the fantasy.

"Yes," she acknowledges, adding just a little mischief to her voice and brushing her hand low. He groans, shifting position a little next to her. "But that's an Admiral's desk, not a teacher's."

"It's a good desk," he protests, but seems focused on something else. "You were a great teacher."

"You never saw me teach."

"I see you," he says simply, kissing her fingertips one by one.

Yes. She rather thinks he does.

II

 _Red hair, sometimes brushing a little against her shoulder, sometimes moving when she shakes her head emphatically. Fingers that tap against the table, nails scratching a little against the surface from time to time. Skin, a little pale from the curse of space – all stars and no sun – and marked by years in lines he wishes to trace. Lips upturned in an almost secretive smile, as if she is seeing something no one else is. Breasts, pressing firmly against the fabric of her shirt just as it would the palm of his hand. Legs crossed under the table, long enough to make her seem tall despite men towering over her._

 _Or maybe that's just the strength in her, making it impossible to look down on her after getting a sense of it._

 _Laura Roslin. He doesn't tire of looking at her. He sees much more than others in this room, an arrogant thought born mostly from what she's opened his eyes to._

 _It feels oddly more intimate than seeing her naked, though he would not object to that either._

 _Watching skin instead of fabric that clings and curves to it, tracing legs to find just how long they are. Fingers digging into his shoulders as his fingers stroke her, and her nails leaving marks across her skin. Her hair thrown back, brushing the table a little when she arches against him. Her nipples hard against his palm, her body soft with him hard inside her. Feeling her lips curve in a smile against his, but at a secret shared now._

 _Yes. He sees, and crosses his legs under the table so others won't._

II

"So you're telling me a fantasy about having a fantasy?" Laura says, and the noise she makes at the back of her throat makes his mouth a little dry. "You're an interesting man, Bill Adama."

"You didn't always think so," he says, but without bitterness. They both thought a lot of things about the other. It feels part of the journey, and he likes the destination too much.

"No," she agrees. "After Kobol, I started to consider you more."

"Kobol," he repeats, feeling her bend a knee as he lifts her leg a little, putting it over his.

"Mm," she says. Her eyes are bright as she looks him right in the face, and a little mischievous too. "I imagined frakking you in the rain, so glad was I to see you."

"Really?" he breathes.

"Really."

II

 _It's frakking raining again. She's beginning to think people left Kobol to get some sun rather than any curse, the downpour seeming to let down only sporadically. Frakking Kobol. Frakking rain._

 _That doesn't stop her from enjoying Bill Adama licking raindrops from her lips or lacing her fingers in his wet hair._

 _He's come, humble without losing his pride, with trust in her faith rather than faith himself and it makes her want to kiss him all over and quite frankly frak him._

 _So she is._

 _They haven't removed their clothes – no time and too many possibilities for awkward questions – just pushed fabric down enough that his fingers could make her cheeks flush. No less so when he thrusted into her, her body feeling warm for the first time in days._

 _"Laura," he says, voice like gravel and sincerity. Her name on his lips rather than just her title feels intimate, earned not through frakking but through a new understanding between them._

 _"Bill," she says, repeating it more sharply when his hand slip down between them and puts pressure just tactically right. She wants to say more, but his lips are on hers again and she can just think it instead._

 _Bill. Bill. Bill, oh Bill, oh Commander Adama, oh, oh, oh._

 _Oh frak._

II

"Commander Adama?"

"Admiral Adama sounds better," she agrees, breathing carefully as he slides into her more than thrusts. Always careful now, Bill. Her body appreciates it, even as her mind can imagine him not having to.

"I hope you didn't promote me so using my military rank would sound better in your fantasies," he comments dryly, and she laughs.

"That wouldn't be very Presidental of me."

He touches her cheek, his thumb tracing her jaw so lightly it almost feels ghostly. "You're a great President."

Was (maybe), she doesn't correct him with. She just smiles a little, more so when he kisses her gently as if to underline it. Not that he needs to. What Bill says, he means. That's why he'd make a terrible politician. That's also part of why she loves him.

"You always kept the dignity of the office," he murmurs, his breath brushing her lips as his lips just did. "More than Adar, more than frakking Baltar. I always wondered if..."

"If?" she gasps, her fingers digging a little into his arm as he moves.

"If you could keep dignified no matter what."

II

 _He has to give it to Laura Roslin, Bill decides. Not one inappropriate noise has crossed her lips even as he is, well, giving it to her pretty good. Licking, stroking, even moving a finger inside her, and still Laura has managed to keep replying to Tory quite calmly._

 _Tory, who doesn't know her unexpected presence has forced the military leader of the Fleet to dive and hide under the desk of the President of the aforementioned Fleet, 'lest both of them be caught in the act of foreplay._

 _Still. Not all bad. There are certain advantages to his position, especially when the President is wearing only a skirt._

 _"But Madam President, he's insisting..." Tory is saying and Bill pauses for a moment, realising he's not sure who they are discussion._

 _"I will see Tom Zarek tomorrow," Laura says firmly. He approves of that resolve, letting her know the only way he can._

 _He wishes he could see her face, but he can hear her clear her throat in a way that's more throat than clearing.He can feel the tension in her muscles as he touches her thigh too and knows he's definitely having an effect._

 _"Thank you, Tory," she says pointedly and maybe just a little breathlessly._

 _"Madam President."_

 _It takes about thirty seconds – he counts them by feeling her pulse – until Laura pulls away and he can crawl out to meet her indignant glare as they both stand up. He resists the urge to disappear under the desk again, fleetingly tempting as it is. (He is not a turtle. He does not hide inside a shell at signs of danger, even if those are Laura Roslin's folded arms of disapproval.)_

 _"Admiral Adama," she begins, folding her arms after brushing her skirt down. "That's quite inappropriate and..."_

 _She falters, then just shakes her head a little as if realising inappropriate probably begun when she kissed him quite forcefully and definitely was a good description of pointedly brushing her knee against his erection to affirm he had one._

 _"Yes," he agrees, finding himself smiling a little. "Would you like to try for 'completely'?"_

 _She does, as it turns out._

II

"I'd like to see you calm if I gave you a blowjob in CIC," Laura comments and he can't help but groan at the picture. She moans in return when he pick up the pace a little, watching carefully if there is any discomfort registering on her face.

There isn't.

There is just something he can't quite identify, peace and longing and desire and a little sadness mixed to something he can't find a word for.

"What are you thinking of?" he whispers.

"Ironies," she breathes, her eyelids fluttering a little. "Earth. Not the one we found, the one I just imagined."

She sounds bitter, but before he can comments on that, she goes on.

"Before my cancer came back, I used to think if we found it, maybe I could build a cabin. Maybe we both would, and there we could finally..."

"Laura..."

"After Earth, I thought. After Earth, maybe the Admiral and the President could retire and Bill and Laura could pick up a life."

"So did I," he admits and her smile breaks his heart a little as he laces his fingers in hers.

II

 _Blue sky, green grass. Bright sun, clear water. A lazy wind touching the trees, making the leaves dance lightly, as if not wanting to disturb the quiet._

 _Bill Adama and Laura Roslin are also dancing under the sky, her head resting against his shoulder and her eyes closed. She's humming, he's moving and they have no plans to stop for quite a while. There is no rush, nothing either would rather do and all the quiet in the world to dance in._

 _Well. For a few miles, at least. Beyond the horizon, others have settled too. The new home of humanity, as it was an old home of humanity too. Earth._

 _Houses have been erected, fields have been cleared for farming, communities have been formed by those who wished it so. Others have sought solitude._

 _Like Bill and Laura, just together. A cabin for them, and they've taken their time to build it. No rush there either, sleeping under an open sky so desirable after having no sky at all for so long. Sleeping together too, as desire takes them, no other concern needed._

 _The cabin will be done when the winter comes, and then they can wake to a fall of snowflakes. Stay inside and read, watching frost make patterns across the windows. Sleep by a fireplace, keeping warm between them. Life, no other concern needed._

 _This is Earth. Imagined. Like any fantasy, it's hard to live up to._

II

When Bill falls asleep, Laura doesn't. The lights are flickering and she half wonders if they'll wake to Galactica dark and her crew walking around with flashlights. Or worse yet, not waking at all as Galactica finally can't hold it together anymore and they're all left to rest in space.

She knows how the ship feels. Every groan of it, she could match. Her hands shake, Galactica's metal cracks. Their fates seem strangely linked now, and it's almost like having a friend to die with.

(Sometimes, she dreams of snowflakes in space, falling for Galactica to dance in, as if they both imagine a sky above them and doesn't want to die in space.)

For Bill, she would wish it differently, but it is a reality and she has made a virtue of accepting them too much to stop now.

That leaves the fantasies.

She puts her head on his chest as she closes her eyes, feeling his heartbeat faintly. A lullaby of sorts to fall asleep to, and she finally does.

In the morning, she'll wake to Bill and Galactica both, and Bill wanting to brush her teeth for her as if that would fix everything.

This is life. It's just hard to live in and easier to imagine better.

FIN


End file.
